Why does this favor Republicans? Because it angers them, while for Democrats it excites some but basically provokes the rest into shrugging indifferently.
The Houston Chronicle has this commentary:
From a personal standpoint I could not care less what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. That being said, we live in a representative republic, where the will of the people, as voiced through their elected representatives, is the law of the land. The responsibility of a non-elected judiciary is not to make law, that is the job of the legislative branch. In my opinion, the California Court has clearly overstepped it’s bounds here.
In this case the people of California spoke clearly, when in 2000, 60% of the people voted for a proposition that recognized marriage as between a man and a woman. Now 4 Supreme Court justices make a ruling which overturns the expressed wishes of a state of over 36 million people.It doesn't matter that all the candidates basically have the same positions. As the commentary above pointed out, it becomes an emotional thing for voters, where symbolism reigns and the candidate who can plausibly be seen to condemn it the most wins. That candidate will not be the Democratic nominee, but will be McCain.
The Republicans benefited from this issue bigtime in '04. The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared the ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional in late 2003, and marriages began in the middle of May 2004. In response 11 states put banning gay marriage on their ballots in '04. It passed in all of them: Arkansas (passed by 75%), Georgia (passed by 76%), Kentucky (passed by 75%), Michigan (passed by 59%), Mississippi (passed by 86%), Montana (passed by 67%), North Dakota (passed by 73%), Ohio (passed by 62%), Oklahoma (passed by 76%), Oregon (passed by 57%), and Utah (passed by 66%).
I don't think this issue will be as big as it was in '04, but it could be. Especially now.
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